"You are rather attractive," said Princess Langwidere, examining Dorothy's face with careful attention. "Not at all beautiful, you understand, but you have a certain style of prettiness that is different from that of any of my thirty heads. So I believe I'll take your head and give you Number 26 for it."
"Well, I believe you won't!" exclaimed Dorothy.
"It will do you no good to refuse," continued the princess, "for refusing only makes me want it more."
Dorothy stamped her feet and protested, but to no avail. Langwidere called her soldiers and they escorted Dorothy to the tower and locked her up.
Up in her tower, Dorothy didn't know what to do. Tiktok's battery had run down, and Billina was just a chicken and couldn't do much.
Out of her tower window, Dorothy could see the deadly desert, which was all that separated her from Oz. She was so close, but so far away. She kept staring out the window, hoping to see her friends arriving from Oz to save her, but no one ever showed up.
She was locked in the tower for weeks before the Princess remembered her, and then the guards came for her.
They dragged her down the tower stairs, through the castle, and into Langwidere's workshop. The people they passed averted their gaze, not daring to catch Dorothy's eyes.
Dorothy had been in some rough scrapes before, but she'd always managed to get out of them. But now she was being dragged into Langwidere's workshop to get her head chopped off, and this was a situation that Dorothy didn't think she could get out of.
She'd never been in such a dangerous situation. Everything else, she'd managed to escape. But now, there were no Tin woodsman, scarecrow, and cowardly lion to burst in and rescue her. She was on her own, and her neck was on the line.
"Oh, stop being dramatic," Langwidere complained when the guards dragged Dorothy into her workshop. "I'm not stealing your head outright; I'm just trading it."
"All, the same, ma'am," Dorothy said, "I'd rather keep the one I have. I'm pretty attached to it, you see."
Langwidere ignored her. Dorothy looked around the workshop. The floor was made of roughly hewn wood; with something dark and viscous stuck in the grooves of the floorboards. A shelf on the wall held various cutting implements: axes, swords, and meat cleavers that looked just like the ones Aunty Em used to cut the heads off of chickens, back in Kansas.
Dorothy didn't think she was in Kansas anymore, and she wasn't a chicken, thank you very much.
But that didn't matter. The guards tied Dorothy's hands behind her back and then forced her to her knees. There was a large wooden block with a groove carved into it, and that was where they forced her neck. The wood was cut and stained, and Dorothy tried not to think about where the dark crimson stains came from.
"Pull her hair back," Langwidere said. "I don't want it damaged." One of the guards pulled Dorothy's hair back. She felt a cool breeze tickle her neck, raising goosebumps.
Langwidere lifted an ax from her weapons rack and handed it to the guard. "This one."
The ax was cold. It burned like ice when it broke her skin, cutting through flesh and blood vessels before grating to a stop against her spine, leaving her head only half attached. Or half decapitated, if she wanted to be pessimistic about it. The guard pulled the ax out with a slurp and raised it for another blow. Dorothy wished her hands were free so she could brace herself on the wooden block her shattered neck rested on.
The ax swung down again, and this time it went through her spine, splintering bone. Her head fell off into the wicker basket set in place to catch it.
"Hmm," Langwidere said. "Be neater next time. It shouldn't take two blows."
"Apologies, princess." The guard bowed his head, baring his neck obsequiously.
Dorothy was in two places at once. She could feel her body—slumped against the wooden chopping block, hands tied behind her back, knees braced against the cold stone floor. She could feel her head—caught face down in a wicker basket, dripping blood. She could feel the movement of air against the open flesh of both ends of her neck stump. Somehow, she could still breathe.
She tried to speak, but nothing happened.
She felt hands grab her head and lift it up, and then she found herself looking at Langwidere.
Dorothy blinked.
Langwidere tilted her head to the side, examining it. "Not as conventionally attractive as my others, but unique. Innocent and pretty in a childlike way. When I wear this head, people will underestimate me."
Dorothy tried to speak up and object to Langwidere's statement, but she still couldn't speak.
Langwidere smiled and set the head down on the table with a wet thud. Dorothy felt the wooden grain make sudden contact with her neck stump and flinched, her headless body twitching on the floor. Hopefully she wouldn't get splinters. They would be difficult to remove.
"Thank you for your assistance," Langwidere told the guard. "You are dismissed." He bowed and left.
The blood was still dribbling from both ends of Dorothy's neck stump, but Langwidere ignored it.
"It's a delicate art," she said, half to herself and half to Dorothy, "getting the necks to match up. If you're not careful with the measurements, you could end up with an abnormally long neck, or no neck at all."
She grabbed a toolbox from a shelf and brought it over to the table that Dorothy's head rested on, grabbing the head and tilting it to the side so she could see the bottom of the stump. Dorothy had a brief moment of dizziness, feeling her head move while her body remained still. From this angle she couldn't see what Langwidere was doing with her neck, and could only stare blankly at the ceiling.
"That clumsy buffoon," Langwidere growled. "Two blows! It should only take one to separate a head! And now there are bone fragments stuck in the flesh!"
A hand brushed Dorothy's head stump and she flinched again, scrabbling on the floor with her hands still tied behind her back. Langwidere ignored her, continuing to talk to herself. "Where are my tweezers?" She rummaged around, and then Dorothy felt something sharp poking into her head stump. It seemed like hours while Langwidere painstakingly pulled bone fragments out of her flesh, all the while grumbling about the ineptitude of her servants.
As the sharp metal dug into her flesh, a few tears rolled down Dorothy's cheek. Langwidere laughed and patted her cheek, leaving a bloody handprint behind. "This is the delicate part, child. It can't be rushed."
Once the fragmented bone was removed, Langwidere measured the head stump and then brought a saw over, sawing off half an inch to trim it down to size. She wiped off the stump with a cloth, causing Dorothy to reflexively swallow as the cloth passed over her gaping throat.
Langwidere removed her necklace and then her head, placing it on a cushion. Her stump was cleaner and smoother than Dorothy's neck was, although the raw flesh and open throat were still visible. She grabbed Dorothy's head and lifted it to her own neck. In one moment, Dorothy was looking out over the bloody work room, and the next, everything was black. She panicked and tried to speak, but still nothing happened
"Interesting," Dorothy's voice said, although it wasn't Dorothy speaking. "It's been many years since I was able to look at the world through the eyes of a child."
Now Dorothy was completely alone: she had lost contact with her head and was just a senseless body scrabbling in the dirt.
"I'm still keeping my deal, even though you didn't agree," Langwidere said. Something touched Dorothy's neck and wiggled into place.
Everything came back. Dorothy could see again, although she almost wished she couldn't. It was disorienting to see Langwidere's tall, graceful body, with Dorothy's childish head grinning down at her.
"I didn't agree to this," Dorothy said in a voice she didn't recognize.
"I know," Langwidere responded. "That makes it all the better."